


Stories of the Second Self: Day of the Living ...

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [31]
Category: Night of the Living Dead (1990), Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Lindsay and Austin were two vampires who had to flee their home town. Dawn was coming, and they needed to get under a roof, any roof and fast. However, the church they took shelter within soon becomes surrounded by living seniors who demand to be bit in hopes of turning into vampires themselves, in a reversal of Night of the Living Dead.
Series: Alter Idem [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Day of the Living ...

"Jesus, that was close!" Austin huffed, after they retreated to the church at dawn.

Going down the stairs, Austin uncovered his head, and Lindsay did the same. They didn't even know what town they were in, just that it appeared on the horizon when the first light of dawn peeked.

A squeak from under a couple of loose wooden planks startled Austin, as he whirled around. Lindsay pulled one back to discover the source, and then threw an admonishing looked to Austin.

"Only you, me, and this rat are dumb enough to be in this rotting old church," Lindsay scolded, "And the rat's free to leave any time of day."

With his solid black eyes and mouth full of razor teeth, Austin shrugged and smiled helplessly back at her. Though both became vampires, neither engaged in Open Feeding. That didn't stop the people in their home town from losing their shit and showing up one night with UVC lights and, believe it or not, stakes, crosses, and all the other paraphernalia they saw from new and old movies.

"Well," Austin replied, risking looking up the stairs at the window. "I don't think anyone knows we're here, so that gives us a day, I think."

It was not to be.

The two found a spot under the bell furthest from the window to try and sleep. Lindsay first checked her phone to find that cell service was still down. It's like everyone everywhere lost it at the same time.

Later, Lindsay stirred on hearing a knock on the church's front door. Checking her phone, she saw that it was noon, and that meant she could risk going to the upper floor to see who it was.

Despite that, she crept carefully and barefoot up the stairs without waking Austin. She had learned that taking her shoes off gave her an incredibly quiet step. Though, she feared a creaky floor board might still betray her, as she doubted her supernatural state meant magically levitating around or turning into mist.

After ascending the other half set of stairs, Lindsay poked her head out just enough to see the vague outline of a man at the front door. The glass was so filthy and dust covered she couldn't make out more, especially with all the daylight causing more glare than she would've thought possible back when she was human.

"Hey," the voice of a very old sounding man called, "You in there? I saw your car out front, and came to see if you needed help. Folks don't like you in this place."

Lindsay debated answering him with a shout from where she stood or trying to actually go to the door. She opted to do neither, and withdrew to the bowls of the church again.

"Who's that?" Austin asked, looking creepy with his concerned expression.

"Just some old guy," Lindsay dismissed.

"What's he want?" Austin pestered with another question.

"Really, just don't worry about it," she answered, and huddled down next to him. "Last thing we want is him realizing what we are and freaking out."

Except, that wasn't the end of it. All throughout the day, the guy knocked and called out. Lindsay and Austin wrapped their arms around each other, both watching the rat scratch through debris and clean itself. The knocks turned to pounding, and after an hour there came a second beating on the door.

"We know you're in there!" the voice was a woman, but she also sounded old. "Hey! You listenin' to me? You got no right to keep to yourself in our church!"

"God," Lindsay complained, "Lighten the fuck up, people."

Several more hands started wrapping and pounding the church, and not just at the doors. "You're vampires! We know you are!"

"Shit," Austin cursed, "Now what do we do?"

"They're old people," Lindsay replied, "We're fine. So long as one of them doesn't bulldoze the building out from over us we'll be okay."

"Just give us what you got, and you can leave," another aged voice called out.

"Is that what they want?" Austin whispered, "To be turned?"

"Unless you suddenly figured out how to do it, I don't know how to oblige them," Lindsay said, feeling more fearful of the implications.

By around four in the afternoon, pretty much every exterior wall of the church was the source of thumps, some sounding like bodies weakly thrown against it. The front door took the most abuse, and then came something that startled Lindsay.

A cracking of wood, would've made Lindsay's heart jump out of her chest if it still had a beat. "Shit, we gotta do something!"

She pulled at Austin, until the two ran upstairs. It was to their good fortune, that the back side of the church was facing west and had no windows. She and Austin ran to the front door to reinforce it.

A stray wrinkled hand managed to push through the gap of the door. "I see you in there! Bite me, young lady! Make me young again!"

"God, seriously?" Lindsay gritted while pushing the hand back out and slapping the door closed all the way with her body against it.

"I got an idea," Austin called out, and ran back downstairs.

"Wait," Lindsay shouted, "You gotta get the other door first."

After a moment, Austin came back up with armfuls of planks. "I'm going to look for something to nail these up with.

"Are you kidding?" Lindsay snapped, still trying to keep the door closed without finishing the old people's job of breaking it in half.

"It's like a horror movie," Austin griped, as he ran back down the stairs. "Never would've thought dead people would have to fend off the living."

"Hurry up!" Lindsay yelled, "Before they start breaking windows!"

Lindsay heard crashing downstairs and many unknown objects spilling onto floors, with Austin griping, "Son of a bitch! You'd think with all this carpentry shit there'd be a hammer somewhere."

Lindsay heard the door crack more, and a major section of the wood flexed where the incomplete break occurred. "Austin!"

"Got it!" Austin bolted back up, three steps at a time and rushed over. "Okay, move over, move over."

"Argh!" Lindsay pushed onto the doorknob from the side, so her extreme strength was diminished by bad leverage.

With nails in between his lips, Austin mumbled while hammering the first piece of wood in frantically. "If Romero were still alive, he'd be laughing his ass off."

"It's not funny to me," Lindsay remarked.

"Yeah, got it!" Austin had the first plank in, and quickly start another. "Got another hammer in a belt loop on my pants."

Lindsay stepped around him, when he had the door nailed shut enough that she could let go. She took the second hammer Austin handed her, and than ran to the back door to start boarding it up.

The whacks attracted the elderly from the side walls. They started pounding on the door just as she finished putting the first board across.

Lindsay threw a hip against that board, while starting another right above it. Just when she and Austin had the doors completely covered in crossbeams, windows started breaking. She smacked the first hand that reached through, and kept at it, until the living withdrew their severely bruised limb.

Lindsay really didn't feel bad about hurting someone, just that she hadn’t committed what was called Open Feeding to avoid legal trouble and vigilantes.

"Two windows down," Austin called out.

"Almost done with my third." Lindsay felt a surge of pride for being ahead of Austin, and then screwed up a nail, bending it into a noddle. "Fuck."

After their herculean effort, the doors and ground floor windows were finally secured. By then, what little light came through cracks indicated that the sun was setting.

"Think we oughta try escaping from an upper floor window?" Austin asked her.

A sudden shattering of glass had them both running to the windows of the front wall. Lindsay, saw through the built-up crud that the seniors had gathered around the car and were busting out all the windows. One of them popped the hood and clipped whatever hose or cable was readily accessible.

"We're stuck here," Lindsay bemoaned.

"Dammit!" Austin pounded the wall, and then withdrew his fist.

"Yeah," Lindsay nodded gravely at him, "Don't break the walls."

"That was my uncle's car," Austin complained, and leaned to look out a different gap in the boards. "Can't we just lie to them and get a free meal out of it?"

"I don't think they're that stupid," Lindsay suggested, "They're not real zombies, just nuts."

"Do you see any guns on them?" Austin asked.

Lindsay peered through several different cracks to find a reasonably clear patch of dirty glass. "No, I don't think so."

Being shot most likely wouldn't kill either of them, but the injury wouldn't heal without blood, and they would lose whatever little remained in their veins.

"Looks like they're tiring out," Austin observed.

Some paced awkwardly around, including an irritable old lady with a walker, while others just slumped down in place to wait. At a guess, Lindsay figured there were at least thirty people out in front of the church, and wondered how many more lingered around the rest of the building.

"That's gotta be the entire town out there," Lindsay surmised, "All the places we had to end up, it's a retirement community."

Lindsay turned to see that another set of stairs went up to the floor built over the high-ceiling church, and headed up there barefoot. She didn't want to make enough noise to draw the living people's attention, though Austin blew that with his hiking boots against the wooden steps, and realized only after getting halfway up.

Creeping over to one of the upper floor windows, which had curtains, unlike those below, Lindsay parted one to see below. "They're taking shifts, I think. Most of them are sleeping or eating."

"Ugh!" Austin looked disgusted. "Nasty watching people's dentures fall out while gnawing on a corn cob."

"It's a full blown picnic," Lindsay noted, "Makes me wonder how many other vampires were nabbed by these weirdos."

"Whoa, what's that?" Austin looked out a window on the opposite side.

Lindsay came over to him to see what got his attention. It looked like a wheat field or just overgrown with weeds, but something parted a way through them directly to the church.

“I think it’s stopping, whatever it is,” Lindsay suggested, when the waving of stalks ceased.

The glow of heat was still there, so Lindsay was sure it wasn’t wind or another vampire trying to sneak into the church for shelter.

“Maybe it’s one of them, and they tripped,” Austin guessed.

With all the excitement, Lindsay felt a little lightheaded and sat down to lean against the wall. She looked over at Austin. “You miss it?”

“Miss what?” Austin asked, also hunkering down to rest.

“Things being normal,” Lindsay explained, “Miss being able to just go out and not be leered at like you’re the bogeyman.”

“Nah. Fuck normal, and fuck normal people,” Austin dismissed, and thumbed over his shoulder. “Those creeps out there are what’s normal. They wanna be us, and they can’t so they mob those of us who are.”

“Why do you think it happened to us?” Lindsay asked, with a distant stare at the opposite wall.

“Don’t know.” Austin shook his head. “Don’t care either.”

“Do you think that’s it?” Lindsay wondered aloud, “That we don’t care? Some of the movies and books have it that vampires spend centuries whining and mourning those they lost in life, but honestly I could do without most of the people in my life. As for total strangers? I couldn’t care less for them at all.”

“Hey, remember that baby bat party we got invited to?” Austin brought up.

“Oh god!” Lindsay covered her face with her hands. “Bunch of emo drama.”

“Yeah, but the food was free,” Austin said, making them both laugh.

“I do miss that,” Lindsay agreed, “Didn’t even have to bite people. They’d open their own veins like it was a collection plate at church. They didn’t even asked to be turned.”

Austin looked like he was about to say something, when a huge crash sounded from below.

“They’re breaking through!” Lindsay yelled, and burst into action.

She jumped the full length of the stairs down to the bottom and swung her head wildly to see where the breach happened. That’s when she saw the massive wolf in one corner, snarling at their sudden appearance on the ground floor.

“Oh shit!” Austin cursed, his solid black eyes wide with disbelief.

Austin’s mouth agape and his vampiric teeth readily visible, got the wolf even more agitated. It growled with its tongue out between sharp gleaming white incisors and canine teeth. It reared back against the corner as much as it could, but snapped at the air a couple times for good measure of its threat.

“What’ll we do?” Austin called out.

Amid shards of glass and broken boards lay a large duffle bag on the floor next to the wolf that got Lindsay’s attention. It wasn’t there before, and the wolf seeing her focus, swiped a forepaw to draw it closer.

“I think it brought that in here with it,” Lindsay remarked.

“I didn’t think there were any wolves around here,” Austin commented, missing her point, and instead registered something else. “Wait, why should we be afraid of a wolf?”

“Because it has thumbs?” Lindsay replied with what to her was a rhetorical question.

“Oh shit, you’re right,” Austin noticed finally, making Lindsay’s eyes roll.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t try it,” Lindsay threatened, and pointed at the window. “We found this place, so you can just take a hike.”

The snarl subsided, and the large wolf shook its mane. Then it opened up the bag and pulled out clothes. After that, a binding sound started, like rope or leather straps being stretched.

“He’s changing!” Austin pointed out.

After a couple of minutes the wolf had turned into a man, one with incredible brown hair and amazing body, other than so much body hair Lindsay noted, sizing him up.

Hastily, he threw on athletic shorts, and jeans after that, while talking to himself, “Vampires now? Guess I shoulda figured.”

“Yeah, and we’re a couple pints low, if you get the drift,” Lindsay warned.

He waved that off, before throwing a shirt on, but leaving it unbuttoned. “Look, if you want some in trade for me hiding out here, that’s cool.”

“You know, we had that window boarded up for a reason,” Austin said.

“It’s seven feet off the ground at that corner,” the stud muffin said, “I think we’re in the clear, but if it makes your feel better, Eddie Munster, I’ll nail it back up.”

“Okay-- Team Jacob,” Austin threw right back at him.

“Hey, now that shit’s fuckin’ offensive,” the former wolf and current human stallion stabbed a finger, before getting his shoes on without socks. “Half-breed, howler, mongrel I’ll put up with.”

“What about a name?” Lindsay asked him.

“Mason,” he replied, and scooped up his duffle. “Where all are you holding up?”

“Oh, upstairs,” Lindsay answered, and started up.

"Wait," Mason said, and turned to fulfill his promise on the window.

Lindsay headed up anyway, followed by Austin who traded looks with her at the top.

"So there're werewolves now?" Austin asked. "Up to this point I thought we were the strangest thing in the world."

"I'd check the news if we could get some fucking reception out here in BFE," Lindsay complained with her tone getting louder.

"Hey, I got an emergency radio," Mason called up from downstairs.

"Boy Scout werewolves," Lindsay added, cracking a grin loose from Austin's face.

After some hammering, Mason came upstairs and carefully selected a place against the wall to leave his bag. Lindsay couldn't help but mentally compare that to a dog sniffing around before figuring out where they wanted to lay down.

"So, what're your names?" Mason asked, as he sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Lindsay," she replied, and pointed, "and Austin."

"What twist of bad luck dropped you guys off in this place?" Mason inquired on.

"Only place close enough before daylight," Lindsay replied.

"Oh, so that's really a thing?" Mason wondered, "I don’t go strapped with garlic or crosses, if that's what you're worried about."

"That shit doesn't really work," Austin remarked, and then looked up, "Besides, we'd be fried fritters if that were a problem."

"Awh, yeah," Mason realized looking around, "Guess you got a point, dude. So, you guys travel together?"

"First trip," Lindsay admitted, "Kind of a rush, really."

"Where we grew up, people just went out of their minds and came after us," Austin added.

"Because of the feeding thing?" Mason said, "Don't you guys just take a little and not kill people?"

"Didn't matter," Lindsay explained, "All that counted is that we didn't fit in. Kinda like before, but with us just turning they had a reason to do something about it."

"Yeah, that sucks balls," Mason remarked, pointing at them both. "I can relate. I just eat regular food, but the first time people caught me changed they just started shooting. It's a ranching town, so wolves... that's regular wolves, are just hated."

"Do you know why you turned?" Lindsay wanted to know.

"Nope," Mason replied, unfolding a leg to reach over to his bag.

He pulled out a bag of jerky and held it out to them, before thinking about it.

"Yeah, can't touch it," Austin said.

"You said you'd be fine giving up some blood?" Lindsay reminded, "Did you mean it?"

"Yeah, so long as it's not a lot," Mason affirmed, "Good regeneration, if I make it up in nutrition."

"Have you been around vampires before?" Lindsay was curious about his generosity to strangers with sharper teeth than his own.

"Never heard of them being real before," Mason admitted, "Scared the piss out of me when you two hauled ass down stairs."

“I just thought of something,” Austin said, “How fast are you when transformed?”

“With a good stretch,” Mason replied, “I think I can hit a solid forty.”

“Like miles per hour?” Austin asked with amazement.

“Yeah,” Mason answered, between chomps on his beef jerky, and traded looks at them both. “Shouldn’t you guys be fast too?”

“I... well, we don’t run out of breath,” Lindsay answered, holding a hand to herself, and then to Austin as she added, “But fast? No. Maybe a tad, but nothing special.”

“You sound like you got a plan worked out, Austin,” Mason observed.

“They fucked up my car,” Austin said, “Otherwise, we’d have bowled through them when nightfall came, and drove the hell out of here.”

“Can you hotwire something and drive it back?” Lindsay wondered, feeling hope arise.

“No, but there’s a gas station with a mechanics shop nearby,” Mason revealed, “I suppose I could try my luck getting past them and see if there’s some keys lying around. Why are you hiding from them in the first place?”

“They want us to turn them into vampires,” Lindsay answered.

“So why not?” Mason wasn’t aware of the problem.

“If we could we’d have done it,” Austin explained, “We just switched, just like you.”

“Can you turn them?” Lindsay asked, waving at Mason.

“I think it’s different with us,” Mason said, “I heard on the road, that some werewolves were recruiting for gangs or something, but they had to keep biting people for a month or so. I don’t think these geezers could take that. And I don’t know if that helps their lifespans.”

“You wanna try for the car then?” Austin asked, leaning forward.

“Sure,” Mason shrugged, finishing off the bag of jerky in what Lindsay thought was record time. “I’ll need a moment to get ready-- you know.”

Mason got up and headed for the stairs, but stopped. “If you guys could grab my stuff on the way out, that’d be great. I don’t want to have it swinging from my mouth while I do this. Fucks up my stride.”

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Lindsay said eagerly.

Once downstairs, Mason could be heard shifting again. Then he pried off the boards he’d just put back up, while Lindsay came down with his bag, and Austin followed. Mason sized up his opening, and managed to shrug in his lupine form before lunging out the window.

“So, you like him?” Austin sounded jealous.

“Not like that,” Lindsay replied with dismissal. “It’s hard to describe, but he’s too--,” she struggled to put words to it, “Like... body warm to be attractive. His skin isn’t pale enough to do it for me other than make me hungry.”

Austin nodded to her, visibly accepting her admission. “Sorry, just--.”

Lindsay pulled Austin in close and landed a kiss on his lips. “Besides, there’s things I like doing with you that no living man would put up with.”

Austin grinned at that, and the pair kept an arm around each other while waiting. After half an hour, Lindsay heard squealing tires and revved up engine drawing closer. There were a few thumping noises outside, and then a vehicle ground to a halt right up against the church door.

Then came growling and gnashing that Lindsay heard Mason do earlier. Pulling back on one of the boards, she saw Mason swatting away elderly people who grabbed at him or swung pipes and golf clubs. He apparently had driven the SUV in his therianthropic form, which include claws on his fingers that were almost two inches long and straighter than she thought wolves would’ve had.

She and Austin pulled out more boards and broke the window out, seeing how Mason managed to get enough distance that they could crawl through the door window into the back hatch. Mason stepped over to the back of the vehicle and knocked ambling flailing seniors away to keep the access safe.

Lindsay helped get Austin through first, and passed over Mason’s duffle bag. After, Austin offered Lindsay his handholds to pull her through and into the back of the SUV. Lindsay, felt a warm hand latch onto her ankle.

“Jesus!” Lindsay, reached back to break fingers, getting a moaning cry from the old man whose touch would’ve made her skin crawl whether she were vampire or human.

“Ready to rock’n’roll?” Mason yelled back, having climbed into the driver seat and mostly turned back to human form.

“Hit it!” Austin craned his head toward the front.

“Audios fuckers!” Mason hit the gas, kicking up dirt from the front and rear tires.

Peeling out of the church lot, Lindsay looked out the back window to see what Mason had hit with the SUV. There were a few people laying on the ground, but she could tell from the improvised clubs next to them, than they earned what they got.

“Woo!” Austin yelled, pumping a fist.

Yeah, Lindsay thought, that’s why she hated the living. Though, she made an exception for Mason. He proved to be a standup guy, and maybe he could be useful in daylight situations.


End file.
